


Colours Of Your Heart

by bindobud



Series: AU ABC's [3]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: M/M, Past Michael/Lindsay, Pre-Relationship, Super Powers AU, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 03:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5190263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bindobud/pseuds/bindobud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Gavin’s first coming to Rooster Teeth, in particular, meeting and becoming friends with the secretive and very very loud Michael, his new co-worker.</p><p>Super Powers AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colours Of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the old office (lads lined up on one side, gents on the other + Ryan on the sofa), with Ray still working there

It was his first day at his new job, and already Gavin was upside down in a pile of chairs. He was used to his clumsiness by now, but what worried him was what he’d say to his new boss when he inevitably got found with his limbs tangled up in a break room’s worth of metal and plastic seats.

It started when he was a kid. His parents told him he was just a natural klutz, but he wasn’t sure how much of it was actually his fault since he found out that not everybody saw the world the way he did, He saw emotions radiating off people in waves of colour, even before he talked to them, even if they tried to hide it. The consequences of this were that firstly, he never kept his friends for very long because they thought his ‘powers’ were an invasion of their privacy, and secondly that he was constantly falling over things like furniture, which were a little hard to see among the rainbow of feelings in front of his eyes.

So here he was, the latch making a quiet clicking noise as someone cracked open the door, a glow of green-blue confusion filtering in before Gavin saw that the emotion belonged to Geoff, his new housemate and boss. Sighing, he put on his best puppy dog eyes and tried to convey ‘sorry’ through expression alone. To his surprise though, Geoff almost instantly turned a bright yellow-orange and a smile broke out on his face, chuckling and shaking his head as he moved forward to help Gavin.

“You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?” Gavin asked pathetically.

“Are you kidding? I’m telling the whole damn office.” Geoff laughed in response, stopping his attempts to help Gavin for a second to think before pulling out his phone and taking a photo.

~~~

The first time Gavin properly met Michael, he opened the door to the Achievement Hunter office and was surprised to find the room almost full of a dark red glow originating from the desk next to what he was told would be his own. The next thing he noticed was the excessively loud swearing he could hear along with a furious mashing of controller buttons. He caught a glimpse, through the red haze, of the strange shapes of an audio recording underway on the screen on the opposite wall, so stayed silent until there was a lull in the deafening noise.

“Um, excuse me…” Gavin muttered tentatively, shuffling a little further into the room. The response was loud and unexpected.

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. Alright, you know what? Fuck it, that’s an hour, I’m done.” Gavin could only just make out the person standing and turning off their console. He heard a deep sigh and jumped when a clatter came from beside him, about a metre from the glowing figure, and the colour in the room dimmed and turned a serene blue.

The face that faded into view in front of him didn’t seem to Gavin to match his previous anger. His face was round and dotted with freckles, and his expression was apologetic, almost sad. Auburn curls hung over his eyes, held in place by a dark grey beanie, and his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. He looked too quiet and soft to have been the source of the noise and glaring red light. While Gavin continued to puzzle over this discrepancy, the stranger spoke up.

“So, I guess you know now, huh?” Gavin stayed silent, confused, until he saw an Xbox controller rise to hover next to the boy’s shoulder. Squinting, he couldn’t see a cable attached or any visible system of support.

“How…” He trailed off, unsure of how to ask his question.

“It’s called telekinesis, I can move shit with my mind. I usually wait to tell people about it, or they get super freaked out. But you walked in and uh…” The stranger paused for a moment, as if a thought had hit him. “I’m Michael, and uh, I guess you’re the new guy?” The revelation of his powers stunned Gavin into silence for a few seconds, but he quickly regained his composure in an effort to not look suspicious.

“Yeah, I’m Gavin. Geoff said something about this being my desk?” Michael nodded. “Is there a reason you’re alone in the office, yelling at your game?”

Michael chuckled bashfully. “Well, this recording here-” he paused and stopped his audio and video capture. “This is Rage Quit. I basically yell at games for an hour and put it up on YouTube. I know, it’s dumb, but the fans like it. Oh, and I’m alone for kind of obvious reasons. Shit goes flying when I get angry. Basically more intense emotion equals stronger powers, so nobody wants to be around in case they get hurt. Understandable, I guess.”

Gavin saw Michael change to a slightly darker, more grey-blue, but even without his gift, the sadness was clear on Michael’s face. Before he had time to ask about it, Michael piped up again, his colour remaining unchanged.

“So! I suppose you want a tour of the office, hey buddy?” Gavin smiled and followed his new friend out of the office, wondering exactly how and when to tell Michael about his own power.

~~~

A few weeks after meeting Michael, Gavin made his Let’s Play debut in Minecraft, when their task was to be the first pair with a full set of diamond armour. Geoff and Jack paired up, as did Ryan and Ray, leaving Michael and Gavin to form a team. Around half an hour in, everyone was spread around the map in their own mines, occasionally running into each other, but mostly focused on finding as much diamond as possible. Following Millie’s advice that diamond is always found near lava, Gavin had dug down to a rather large cavern practically full of lava and was scouring the walls for any sign of the precious material.

“Michael, I think I’ve found the last of the diamond we need! You get back to Achievement City and we’ll meet there to make the armour.” Gavin cried out as he spotted a dim ore pattern high up on one wall, on the opposite side of the lava. He glanced briefly down at the lava, then put a block of cobblestone underneath himself and edged his way across the block to place the next part of his impromptu bridge. Halfway across the pool of lava, Gavin tapped his controller a little too hard, sending his Minecraft character tumbling to his death, squawking in surprise as he did so. Only a few seconds later, the death notification popped up on everybody’s screens, and the whole room burst into laughter at his misfortune, all except Michael. Gavin could only just hear the sharp intake of breath from beside him, but what caught his attention was the familiar red glow coming from his friend.

“Micool?” Gavin asked quietly, trying not to provoke the already angry man.

“Don’t say a fucking word, Gavin. There is nothing you can say.” Michael was fuming, the red surrounding him slowly becoming darker and more intense.

“But I saw diamond, I just gaffed up a bit…”

“You’ve been fucking up since you got here, there hasn’t been one day when you didn’t break something, or fall over something, or spill something in the kitchen or whatever. And I’m sick of it, because more often than not it’s me who fixes the furniture, or me who has to carry you in to this couch if you hurt yourself. Is there anything in this company that has not yet experienced your amazing ability to fuck shit up?” Michael had stood from his chair at this point, towering over Gavin, who was slowly scooting closer to the door, squinting and trying to shield his eyes from the brightness of Michael’s anger. “What the fuck are you doing now, Gavin? You think I’m going to hit you or something?” Gavin had to turn his head. The intensity of the red light was starting to give him a headache.

“Your aura, you idiot! It’s bloody blinding!” He cried out, trying to get Michael to stand back or go away or calm down, anything to stop the red light. Just as Michael processed what Gavin said and started to turn just a shade greener, Geoff’s voice cut through the yelling in the office.

“Michael! Put them down!” His voice didn’t sound angry, strangely, just stern, more so than Gavin had ever witnessed. A wave of grey-blue swept over Michael, and as Gavin blinked, his vision quickly returning, he saw various items from around the office clatter to the floor around Michael’s feet. He stood there for a few seconds, everyone in the office silently watching what he would do next, then he stepped over the mess he had made and past Gavin to the door, quickly walking through and slamming it behind him.

~~~

It took Gavin a few minutes to find Michael, huddled in a corner in the break room. He opened the door quietly, careful not to startle the sombre boy.

“This might not be the best thing to open the conversation with but… why do you go all sad when you move stuff? Well, afterwards I mean, when you drop it, you get really down in the dumps and you look like you’re thinking too much. It’d have to be pretty cool to not have to actually move to move things, so you must be really sad to get sad after being so cool…” Realizing he was rambling, Gavin trailed off and settled for sitting against the wall next to his friend, waiting for an answer.

“I… Something happened a little while ago, Gav. I understand if you don’t want to come near me after I tell you, or if you want to leave the room when I get angry or whatever, cause that’s what the other guys do. They’re either really scared or they think I can’t handle other people being around when my powers go all strong like that. I totally can, I used to love showing my powers off and everything, but in this office they already know, and I can’t deal with them being around when I get sad afterwards, like you said.” Michael took a deep breath, gathering the courage to tell his story, and Gavin took the opportunity to show his support, however dumb it may sound to Michael.

“Whatever you say, I promise I’ll still be your friend. You’re my boy, Michael. Nothing could make me not want to be around you.” Michael in response gave a sad smile, looking directly into Gavin’s eyes as it faded back down to a frown.

“So last year, I had a fiancée. Her name was Lindsay, and we were supposed to get married earlier this year, in the spring. So I decided one day that she could be in one of my Rage Quits, y’know, just like a dumb thing the fans had been asking for. We played some weird game, one of those really shitty internet, flash made things, and I still kept on like I would in any other Rage Quit, being really mad and yelling and fake getting mad at her, just for like a joke or whatever. But I forgot to keep a lid on things, so stuff did go flying a little bit, like it usually did, but I didn’t expect it to be that bad, given I was with her.”

Gavin inhaled deeply, seeing where this story could be going.

“I… I hit her. With one of the guys’ wireless Xbox controllers. It really makes me think if that was on accident, or if my anger triggered something in my head, if I subconsciously did it, because… it hit her right on the back of the head. The soft bit, y’know, just above the back of her neck. I didn’t even notice until she landed on the floor. She was… she was bleeding everywhere and I yelled for the guys, anyone, to help, to call 911, whatever. Ray heard me first. He was just up the stairs and he heard me through the floor apparently, so he came running and he called the ambulance while I sat there with her, unconscious in my arms. I-I rode with her and everything, but I had to wait in the waiting room while they looked at her and did whatever. They took hours, I was sitting there on that shitty plastic chair, and they came in like early hours of the morning, 1 or 2 am, and they told me she… she didn’t make it. I just curled up on that chair and willed myself not to get upset, not to hurt anybody else, but I just felt so useless. I had just sat there while they tried to help her, even with these superpowers I’m so fucking useless…” The glow coming from his chest turned more grey, and slightly darker, so Gavin shuffled closer and put his arm around Michael.

“Hey, Michael, come on now,” Gavin whispered to his friend, less things meant to be heard and more just to reassure him. “I’m not going anywhere, boy, and I’m especially not leaving my special powers buddy.” Michael looked up, his brow knitted in confusion. “If you want to talk about dumb powers, how’s this. I can see emotion as like glowing coloured light around people. It’s called being an empath, I think, and it’s dumb as hell. It’s why I keep falling over things all the time, cause I just can’t see with people’s feelings all in my eyes.”

Michael chuckled quietly. “So that’s what the aura thing was back there? I was getting too angry and it was too bright?” Gavin nodded. “I’ll remember not to get too intense around you then.”

“Don’t do that, Michael, I love your colours! You’re one of the rare people that feels pretty much everything. Well, around me, I suppose. You’re like a shining little rainbow.”

To Gavin’s surprise, Michael turned a colour he’d never seen on him before. The grey-blue was quickly replaced with a golden orange that turned a slight watermelon colour, tinged pink. If Gavin saw correctly, that was in between happiness and… love? Before he had time to say anything, Michael broke the silence, the blush just starting to fade from his cheeks.

“Come on, we’d better get back before anyone starts worrying about us.”

Both boys stood and smiled at each other, and Gavin patted Michael’s shoulder in a show of support before catching his foot on one of the break room chairs. Again. Fully prepared to be taking a fresh set of bruises home after he went ass over tit into more chairs, Gavin raised his arms to shield his face and waited for the impact. But, he realized after a few seconds, the impact never came. He unscrunched his eyes and looked down, wondering why on earth he was floating just above the chair he had just tripped over. A quiet chuckle made him look up at Michael, who seemed to be concentrating hard, but smiling at Gavin’s clumsiness all the same. As soon as Michael set him down, Gavin stepped forward and embraced his friend, grinning.

“Thanks, Micool.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rooster Teeth does not have my permission to use this work of fiction in any video or content unless otherwise stated.


End file.
